Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a graphical user interface, a display control device, a display method, and a program.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as information processing technologies have become more advanced, a variety of functions have been incorporated into small devices such as mobile telephones, game devices, and the like. In addition to communication functions and telephony functions, these devices are now equipped with a wide range of functions such as electronic mail functions, photography functions, schedule management functions, and the like. In order to use the various functions, a user of one of these devices launches an application that corresponds to a desired function. For example, a user who uses an e-mail function launches an e-mail application. Then the user creates an e-mail and transmits the created e-mail. In a case where the user, while using one function, decides to use another function, the user launches a separate application that corresponds to the other function. Furthermore, in a case where the user decides to use different content in the same application, the user first returns to a menu screen, then switches to a screen for selecting the desired content. This causes the user to work through an excessive number of steps.
In a case where the user uses an information processing device that is equipped with a large display device, the user can have a plurality of applications running at the same time and can switch between the applications and between the content to use them. This makes it possible to omit steps by the user. However, in a case where the user uses a device that is equipped with only a small display device, the small display causes the user to work through the steps described above, which diminishes the device's convenience for the user.
Reasons that the user might use a plurality of functions concurrently include, for example, a desire to know a temporal or spatial relationship between information in an e-mail that is transmitted or received by an e-mail function and information in a photograph that is taken by a photography function. In other cases, the user might want to know statistical information pertaining to content that was acquired or provided in the past or want to know a relationship between that statistical information and information on other content.
For example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2005-135401, a mobile terminal device is disclosed that can display, in chronological order, a list of e-mails the user has transmitted and e-mails the user has received. By displaying the list that contains both the transmitted e-mails and the received e-mails, the device makes it possible for the user to see at a glance the flow of an exchange with a single correspondent.